Wednesday 27 May 2009

Poetry please

Swiss was right - the BBC Poetry Season programme about 'Poetry Please' is well worth a watch. It's here but only for a couple more days. So go there quickly...now!
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18 comments:

Rachel Fox said...

It did say two days but it says one now. Watch today or lose forever.
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Ken Armstrong said...

Here's a poem I wrote for you (15 seconds approx.)

She's Generous With Her Kisses

She's generous with her kisses
She's generous with her pecks
The smallest little comment left
Evokes a welcome 'x'

I'm *such* a poet. :)

Rachel Fox said...

I like it!

The thing with the xs is...now if I don't put one I feel like I'm leaving an angry or unfriendly message! Although sometimes that is appropriate...Mostly though I am full of love and good feelings for fellow bloggers.
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The Weaver of Grass said...

On the whole I think it has been a good series of programmes Rachel, don't you.

Rachel Fox said...

Well, it's been good to have programmes on about poetry...though in some ways it might be just as good to space them out rather than have them all at once in a season. I know I've recorded quite a few to watch later - there's only so much poetry on TV a person can take in one go! I suppose that also lots of them will be repeated (on BBC4) as time goes by so we will be able to watch ones we've missed at a later date that way too.

One thing I really liked about this Poetry Please programme was the gentle, loving way it talked about poetry and poetry listeners/fans/aficionados. There are some great quotes in it - I may come back to some of them. Also, interestingly, it didn't really have a presenter speaking to camera and I think that helped it focus on the subject more (for my taste). I'm just tired of watching presenters striding about the place I think (too much 'Coast' perhaps...and also there's been all those history and travel documentary series and all their personality presenters...maybe I'm just presentered out!).

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Rachel Fox said...

Not that I watch that much TV these days...partly because of the above. It's Sopranos DVDs, movies or music for me most of the time. And when we get through the Sopranos (halfway through series 5 just now)...what then? Mark wants me to watch The Wire (he's loved it) but I think I'll probably take a break from TV altogether.
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Ken Armstrong said...

'The Wire' is our thing at the moment. Series 2 ends on Beeb2 tonight and it's been great.

I recommend - have a go when series 3 starts, Mark will catch you up.

Colin Will said...

Nice programme Rachel. I watched it after seeing Armando Ianucci on John Milton, and enjoyed it more. Last night's offering - Simon Schama on John Donne - was excellent though, especially for Fiona Shaw's contributions.

Rachel Fox said...

Oh no Ken...if I do watch 'the Wire' it will be years after everyone else! Look at me with the Sopranos. I think you were one of the people who wrote how good the Sopranos was and you were so right and I am eternally grateful. I wasn't going to bother with it (more mafia on screen!) but it is tremendous. The writing is so unpredictable and clever and the acting is amazing. I draw the line at getting a wardrobe like Carmela's but other than that I am totally in Soprano world...quite a lot of the time these days. It's weird.

And Colin, yes I recorded the Milton to watch some time (when hell freezes over? No probably sooner than that) but I forgot to record the Donne (doh!). I guess it'll be on the i-player or repeated again.

I'm not a regular 'Poetry Please' listener...I don't really listen to R4 much and I find that after 2 poems I am not really listening to the rest of the half hour because I'm still thinking about the first one! I always want to enjoy it but I only really enjoy the special programmes when they focus on one poet. I still really enjoyed this doc though. I love to see people happy in their work and they all looked ecstatic! How lovely.

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Marion McCready said...

Haven't watched it yet, but I've still got 16 hours in which to do so!

Rachel Fox said...

I know...there's nothing like a deadline. I liked it so much I'm going to watch it again. I foresee little housework and leftovers for tea today...
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Marion McCready said...

Yes, I also think it would be nice if they spaced the poetry programmes out a bit!! Watched it, was good to get general public perspective on poetry that's positive for a change!

Rachel Fox said...

I make it that it's on till about 2am Fri 29th (our time).
I watched it again this morning. I watched it in the first place partly because (Scottish) Swiss had called it "very lovely and English" over at One Night Stanzas and I have a fair amount of self-hatred in that regard so I thought it might help me feel better about the home country. And it did.
So - all round to mine at 4 for tea and crumpets. OK?

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deemikay said...

Who mentioned crumpets?

I too dislike over-presenterified telly progs...

deemikay said...

And if my connection was faster, I might get a chance to watch it! But it isn't, so I probably won't.

And I wanted to see the Donne programme...

Rachel Fox said...

Yes and only 6 hours left for the Poetry Please one. Can't you go to a neighbour's?

Saying that it is a lovely evening...many other things to do...
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swiss said...

i agree about the presenters, esp after the oleaginous schama doing his thing on donne. me and t struggled thru it but the most entertainment we could gain was by counting the number of times we shouted 'wanker!' at the screen. i fancied the milton thing but off the back of schama it was too much.

and the cause was not helped by michael wood's beowulf tonight. it was less partial than schama true but still contained some howlers that he should give himself a smack for.

we did try to watch the sheers fellow on matthew arnold but i lost attention and read the poem instead.

so the poetry please thing remains a favourite. i've a mind to post something about my top ten 'lovely and english' things but i'm blogxhausted at the moment so it'll have to wait

Rachel Fox said...

Funnily enough Schama isn't one of the ones that really bugs me. We watched his American history series and he wound me up less than some history presenters! I might have to watch the Donne thing now just to see if I get the urge to shout 'wanker'. Maybe I'll just shout it anyway.

Thanks for your recommendation for the Poetry Please programme though, Swiss. It's not something I would have rushed to watch...no big reason...partly because there is so much poetry stuff on just now...but it was a really interesting show. I particularly liked the bit where the series producer admits he was a bit snobbish about the show when he first got the job. He admitted that he learned, pretty quickly, that some of the poems he had been looking down on "in my scholarly, Cambridge University, snooty way" were actually very good! "I'd put (them) to one side, I didn't think they were up to much," he said, "and it turns out that a lot of them are up to something." The sound of a mind opening...what a great sound!

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